Origins

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Leet speak has its origins from the IRC chat culture and was believed to be born from the need of geeks and hackers to develop a way to avoid censorship and detection in their communications online. The language is characterized by intended grammatical errors, mix usage of numbers, signs and letters (a combination of lower and uppercase letters). Comparable to an industry jargon, leet speak often signifies group affiliations and makes it easy to spot a n00b (newbie) in a room full of pros.

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